Raunchy Comedies Rule Charts

New Line Home Entertainment's Wedding Crashers easily waltzed to the top of both the preliminary national DVD sales chart and Home Media Retailing's video rental chart its first week out, the latest in a series of ‘R'-rated comedies to score big with consumers.

Indeed, three of the top five DVD sellers on Nielsen VideoScan's First Alert chart for the week ended Jan. 8 are raunchy comedies. The others are both from Universal Studios Home Entertainment: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, still No. 2 after nearly a month in stores, and the previous week's No. 1 seller, the direct-to-video sequel American Pie Presents: Band Camp, now No. 5.

The flurry of comedies propelled a catalog title, New Line Home Entertainment's Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, back onto the sales chart more than a year after it came out on DVD. The comic road-trip film debuted at No. 14 on the First Alert top 20.

Two other new releases made impressive debuts on the sales chart, both of them from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment: The Gospel, heavily marketed to both faith-based groups and urban audiences, at No. 3, and the horror film The Cave at No. 4. Both films made only about $15 million in theaters.

The only other new release that managed to crack the First Alert top 20 for the week ended Jan. 8 was Universal's Broken Flowers, which bowed at No. 20. The critically hailed film, which is generating lots of Oscar buzz, fared better in rental stores, debuting at No. 11 on Home Media Retailing's video rental chart for the week.

The week's top renter, Wedding Crashers, generated an estimated $12.11 million in rental revenue, more than twice as much as second-ranked Four Brothers, from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment, the previous week's top renter.

Top rental debuts for the week include The Cave at No. 5, Universal's Broken Flowers at No. 11 and The Gospel at No. 17.